Thursday, 27 February 2014

The Department of Health today has published for consultation draft
regulations to allow mitochondrial donation to prevent the transmission of
serious mitochondrial disease from mother to child.

The consultation will close on 21 May.

This new government consultation is not asking whether but how these controversial techniques for mitochondrial disease should
be implemented. In so doing it sweeps aside genuine ethical and safety concerns
in the headlong rush to push the scientific boundaries.

Rather like the
motorist who asked an Irishman for directions and received the answer, ‘I
wouldn’t start from here’ the government in this new consultation is actually asking
the wrong questions.

Marcy Darnovsky, executive director of the Center for
Genetics and Society in Berkeley, California has previously argued in an piece
titled ‘A
slippery slope to germline modification’ that were the United Kingdom
to grant a regulatory go-ahead, it would unilaterally cross ‘a legal and
ethical line’ observed by the entire international community that
‘genetic-engineering tools’ should not be used ‘to modify gametes or early
embryos and so manipulate the characteristics of future children’. This is now happening.

She is not alone in her concerns. Just this week advisors to
the US Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have expressed
concern that the three-parent embryo procedure could lead to human gene
manipulation and have questioned its ethics and whether the research into it is
as far advanced as some of its advocates claim.

In short, should we be giving treatments to human beings that have not yet been tested fully in animals?

It is deeply regrettable that the government intends to press on recklessly with this controversial technology in real patients in the face of genuine concerns about safety, effectiveness and ethics which have so far prevented its implementation anywhere else in the world.

In many countries around and the world, and by commentators from both secular and faith based scientific backgrounds, Britain is viewed as a rogue state in this area of research.

The Government gave an assurance in 2009 that regulations to
allow treatment would not be made until any proposed techniques were considered
to be effective and safe for use in treatment.

Sunday, 23 February 2014

If you have not yet discovered John Piper’s biographies then
I heartily recommend them. They can all be downloaded free of charge from
the Desiring
God website and are great for car or train journeys, walks and
runs.

John Owen (1616
– 1683) was an English Nonconformist church leader,
theologian, and academic administrator at the University of Oxford.

He was
also briefly a member of parliament for the University, sitting
in the First Protectorate Parliament of 1654 to 1655 under Oliver
Cromwell.

He also chaired the committee which in 1658 drew up the Savoy Declaration, the
statement of faith that became the foundation document for the Congregational Churches.
So Owen takes me right back to my childhood roots.

His influence on subsequent church leaders has been immense
and yet most people today—even pastors and theologians—don't know much about him.

Owen was born in England in 1616, the same year that William
Shakespeare died and four years before the Pilgrims set sail for New England.
This is virtually in the middle of the great Puritan century (roughly 1560 to
1660).

Puritanism was at heart a spiritual movement, passionately
concerned with God and godliness. It began in England with William Tyndale the
Bible translator, Luther's contemporary, and was essentially a movement for
church reform, pastoral renewal and evangelism, and spiritual revival.

Owen was born in the middle of this movement and became its
greatest pastor-theologian as the movement ended almost simultaneously with his
death in 1683. He was also responsible for the publication of John Bunyan’s
‘Pilgrim’s Progress’, the best-selling book in history outside the Bible.

Piper’s whole study is worthy of careful study (or
listening) but I was particularly struck today by his comments on Owen’s
guiding passion, his quest for personal holiness. The following notes are abridged
from Piper.

The words of Owen which come closest to giving us the heart
and aim of his life are found in the preface to the little book: Of the
Mortification of Sin in Believers which was based on sermons that he
preached to the students and academic community at Oxford:

‘I hope I may own in
sincerity that my heart's desire unto God, and the chief design of my life ...
are, that mortification and universal holiness may be promoted in my own and in
the hearts and ways of others, to the glory of God, that so the Gospel of our
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ may be adorned in all things.’

Even in his
political messages—the sermons to Parliament—the theme was repeatedly holiness.
He based this on the Old Testament patter— that ‘the people of Israel were at
the height of their fortunes when their leaders were godly’. So the key issue
for him was that the legislature be made up of holy people.

This humility
opened Owen's soul to the greatest visions of Christ in the Scriptures. And he
believed with all his heart the truth of 2 Corinthians 3:18 that by contemplating
the glory of Christ ‘we may be gradually transformed into the same glory’. And
that is nothing other than holiness.

Owen grew in knowledge of God by obeying what he knew already. In other words Owen recognized that
holiness was not merely the goal of all true learning; it is also the means of
more true learning.

This elevated holiness even higher in his life: it was the
aim of his life and, in large measure, the means of getting there.

Thus Owen kept
the streams of the fountain of truth open by making personal obedience the
effect of all that he learned, and the means of more. Owen passionately pursued a personal communion with God.

J I Packer says that the Puritans differ from evangelicals today because
with them:

‘ ...
communion with God was a great thing,
to evangelicals today it is a comparatively small thing. The Puritans were concerned about communion
with God in a way that we are not. The measure of our unconcern is the little
that we say about it. When Christians meet, they talk to each other about their
Christian work and Christian interests, their Christian acquaintances, the state
of the churches, and the problems of theology—but rarely of their daily
experience of God.’

From Owen’s writings, and from the testimony of others, it
seems fair to say that the aim of personal holiness in all of life, and the
mortifying of all known sin really was the labour not only of his teaching but
of his own personal life.

This was the conviction that controlled him:

‘A man preacheth that
sermon only well unto others which preacheth itself in his own soul. And he
that doth not feed on and thrive in the digestion of the food which he provides
for others will scarce make it savoury unto them; yea, he knows not but the
food he hath provided may be poison, unless he have really tasted of it
himself. If the word do not dwell with power in us, it will not pass with power from us .’

Saturday, 22 February 2014

The problem of how to deal with babies born alive after
abortion has
been highlighted by a question asked at the Council of Europe.

The Committee of Ministers has been asked to act ‘in order
to guarantee that foetuses who survive abortions are not deprived of the
medical treatment that they are entitled to - as human persons born alive - according
to the European Convention on Human Rights’.

The question is highly relevant in view of a story in the Daily
Mail which claimed that 66 babies survived NHS termination attempts in one
year alone.

‘Sixty-six of the
2,235 neonatal deaths notiﬁed in England and Wales followed legal termination
(predominantly on account of congenital anomalies) of the pregnancy ie. born
showing signs of life and dying during the neonatal period. Sixteen were born
at 22 weeks’ gestation or later and death occurred between 1 and 270 minutes
after birth (median: 66 minutes). The remaining 50 fetuses were born before 22
weeks’ gestation and death occurred between 0 and 615 minutes after birth
(median: 55 minutes).’

I have checked the CEMACH reports for 2009
and 2011
(covering 2007 and 2009 respectively) and found no similar reference, but in
the latter a diagram on page 51 (figure 6.2) does say that figures of early
neonatal deaths following termination of pregnancy have been (deliberately)
excluded. The strong implication is that
they are still happening, but just not being reported.

An article
in Prolife Ireland this week reports that the problem also exists in other
countries, including Sweden and Italy, where in 2010 a 22 week ‘foetus’ was
found alive 20 hours after being aborted. The baby was then placed in intensive
care, where he died the next day. It further reports:

‘Another child in
Florence survived three full days after having been aborted. Such events are
happening everywhere that late term abortions are allowed, but are rarely
reported and made public…. To prevent these situations, Norway decided at the
beginning of January to prohibit abortion completely after 22 weeks, the threshold
of viability outside the uterus as determined by the World Health
Organisation.’

The Committee of Ministers will provide a written response to this question
in the coming weeks.

But given that abortion is legal up until 24 weeks in
Britain, it seems inconceivable that babies are not still being born alive
after abortion here. But clearly whoever knows the facts is keeping quiet.

Perhaps someone should ask some questions in the Westminster
parliament too.

But the deafening silence from evangelicals (and effusive welcome from others) that has greeted his call
(see also here)
for a ‘global conversation’ on how we interpret God’s Word is further evidence that
many no longer see him as a credible Christian voice

As Steve Holmes ably argues, we have been
having a global debate about the interpretation of the Bible for almost 2,000
years, and there is nothing earth-shattering or even new in what Chalke says.

Few would dispute the fact that Chalke has done, and continues to do, a great deal of good. But many will see his latest article on the Bible as just a further dangerous step down
the slippery slope to embracing a new liberalism, following logically from his earlier rejection
of penal substitution and his embracing
of gay partnerships.

Chalke does nonetheless give voice to the
inner doubts with which some Christians struggle and for that reason it is
important that we deal in our pulpits and Bible studies with the issues that he
raises.

In other words, the able defences of biblical authority with
which most evangelical preachers and apologists are already well familiar, need
to be made more accessible to ordinary Christians in the pew.

This is because Chalke, though critical of what he sees as
Richard Dawkins’ ‘rather superficial and juvenile conclusions’, now risks
unwittingly giving credence to the new atheism he rejects, by recycling some of
the tired arguments of Dawkins and others as grounds for his own loss of
confidence in biblical authority.

His popularity, combined with his undoubted ability to
connect with people, in this age of celebrity, I believe poses a real danger. This is made worse by the fact that Chalke continues to insist that he is still an evangelical and that many evangelicals seem reluctant to distance themselves from his teaching.

Now that many young Christians on the front line are
encountering the new atheism it is important to ensure that they are adequately
equipped to deal not just with Dawkins and his ilk from outside the camp, but
also with the arguments of Chalke from within it.

So what are the issues that have led Chalke to abandon an
evangelical position?

Interestingly he touches only very briefly on these in the version
of his article that appears in Christianity magazine. One has to read his longer
article on the Oasis website to see which biblical teaching he no
longer feels comfortable with. Here, I believe, we find his real reasons for no
longer professing in full the Christian faith taught by Jesus and the Apostles.

Chalke sums up his objections up by referring to the
‘brutality, violence, genocide and punitive legislation contained in the Old
Testament’ and the ‘oppressive and discriminatory teaching’ in the New
Testament.

The following list of the biblical teaching which Chalke
rejects should not surprise. I have made a short comment about each item in
italics but reams have already been written more ably by others about each.

1. Sex between two people of the same sex is morally wrong

Chalke wants to
endorse ‘faithful’ same-sex partnerships and so rejects the clear biblical
teaching that sex is made only for a life-long, monogamous, heterosexual
relationship called marriage.

2. The slaughter of the Canaanites in the Old Testament

Chalke seems not to
understand the
lessons this incident is meant to teach us about the seriousness of sin and
the justice, mercy and grace of God.

3. The provision for slavery in the Old Testament

Chalke again seems not
to be uncomfortable with the Old Testament’s acceptance of bonded servants (a
better option for indebted people than imprisonment or unemployment) and
prisoners of war and seems not to be aware that kidnapping a person (real
slavery) was actually a capital offence, regarded as seriously in the Old Testament
as murder and/or adultery (Deuteronomy 24:7)

4. God created the universe in six consecutive 24 hour
periods (Genesis 1)

Many evangelicals
dispute that the biblical texts can only be read in this unambiguous way. But
Chalke seems either unaware, or unwilling to acknowledge the existence, of the
different positions defended by serious evangelicals on the creation narrative
from both scripture and history. John Lennox’s ‘Seven days that divide the
world’ is a good overview of the various arguments.

5. Disabled people were not able to become priests in Israel
(Leviticus 21:16-23)

Chalke accuses the
Bible of discriminating against disabled people but the Bible is very clear
elsewhere that all human beings are equally made in the image of God and equally
precious to him. It actually teaches that disabled people deserve special
respect and protection (Leviticus 19:14; 2 Samuel 9). The Levitical passage above
is to be seen in its context as pointing to the perfection of Christ as our
great high priest, in the same way that animals sacrificed in the temple
pointed to him by being ‘without blemish’. It is not endorsing discrimination.

6. The man stoned for gathering sticks on the Sabbath (Numbers
15:32-36)

Like many Old
Testament stories this incident teaches us about the serious of sin and the
importance of taking God’s commands seriously. Old Testament stories are there
to teach us about God’s holiness. They are warnings to us, not endorsements to
apply their punishments today (1 Corinthians 10:1-13).

Chalke asks ‘Can both
accounts be right?’ but most commentators see no difficulty here. Satan was
acting under God’s sovereignty and with his permission, in the same way that he
was allowed to test Job or sift Peter. Chalke is either unaware of this or has
deliberately chosen not to say it. He should perhaps read Jay Smith’s ‘101 cleared
up contradictions in the Bible’ where this and 100 other commonly cited
alleged contradictions are explained.

8. The role of women in the church (1 Timothy 2:11-15)

Chalke again seems
unwilling to grapple with texts like this in the context of the rest of the
testimony of Scripture about the role of women. There is a huge evangelical literature on this text and others. Is he genuinely unable to see his way here, or is he just being lazy?

Chalke’s underlying motivation seems to be to remove, or to
reinterpret, biblical teachings that he thinks will put people off
embracing Christianity. He wants to make the Christian faith more ‘attractive’,
‘relevant’, ‘inclusive’ and ‘welcoming’.

The problem with this is that in so doing he is both
undermining people’s confidence in the authority of Scripture, which Jesus
himself upheld, and also modifying the Gospel.

Chalke has fashioned for himself an alternative Gospel which
cherry picks from Scripture the beliefs he wants and discards those which he
finds inconvenient.

He claims that this is in order to draw people to Christ –
the real Word of God – but I can’t help wondering if he is simply responding to
the temptation of choosing a message which will help him avoid being attacked.

In embracing popular contemporary causes like gay marriage
and avoiding speaking out on areas where Scripture is under attack Chalke risks
emasculating the Gospel.

On the one hand he is endorsing a practice (same sex erotic
behaviour) which the Bible clearly teaches will result in exclusion from the
Kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).

On the other, he is wanting to excise passages from the
Scriptures which teach of God’s holiness, justice and judgement. But
understanding these matters is an essential prerequisite to understanding grace
and mercy and indeed the
true message of the cross.

Jesus Christ put his stamp of authority on the Old Testament and commissioned the writing of the New Testament through the apostles by the Holy Spirit.

In saying that the Bible is not the Word of God Chalke is denying something that Jesus himself taught. He can't have it both ways. He can't claim to follow Christ and yet reject Christ's teaching.

Chalke is walking a dangerous road. In his passion
to draw people in to Christ, he risks leading them away.

Friday, 21 February 2014

The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) has today
soundly rejected any change to its long opposition to the legalisation of
assisted suicide or euthanasia (see RCGP full report and analysis of responses and Pulse report).

The
change had been proposed by former chairman Clare
Gerada and led to an extensive consultation last autumn but members have overwhelmingly
rejected the move.

‘We have just finished
debating the results of the College-wide consultation on whether, as a College,
we should change our collective stance on assisted dying. I can confirm that
Council has resolved to maintain the College’s position of opposition to a
change in the law on assisted dying.

Council decided last
February that consultation with our membership was necessary as, since 2005
when the position was last debated, we have welcomed many new members to the
College and views could have changed.

Any change in the
law to permit assisted dying would have a huge impact on our profession
and this was one of the most comprehensive consultations of membership that we
have ever undertaken, with over 1,700 responses.

Thank you to everyone
who exercised their right to voice an opinion on this – it is imperative that
our membership has the opportunity to inform Council debates on key policy
issues.’

This is a highly welcome move and will send a strong signal
to legislators in a year when new bills seeking to legalise assisted suicide
are being debated in both Westminster and Scotland.

The recent legalisation of euthanasia
for children in Belgium and the huge
increase in the number of cases of euthanasia for people with mental
illness in the Netherlands have sent shockwaves throughout the world and have
underlined how difficult it is to stop incremental extension once any weakening
of the law is allowed.

Any change in the law to allow assisted suicide or
euthanasia would place pressure on vulnerable people to end their lives for
fear of being a financial, emotional or care burden upon others. This would
especially affect people who are disabled, elderly, sick or depressed.

Persistent requests for euthanasia are extremely rare if
people are properly cared for so our priority must be to ensure that good care
addressing people's physical, psychological, social and spiritual needs is
accessible to all.

The present law making assisted suicide and euthanasia
illegal is clear and right and does not need changing. The penalties it holds
in reserve act as a strong deterrent to exploitation and abuse whilst giving
discretion to prosecutors and judges in hard cases.

The RCGP has wisely resolved to maintain its position of
opposition to a change in the law to allow assisted suicide or euthanasia
recognising that any change in the law would have a huge impact on the
profession.

It is highly significant that this was one of the most
comprehensive consultations of the RCGP membership that has ever been
undertaken, with over 1,700 responses.

The RCGP decision reflects the fact that the vast majority
of UK doctors are opposed to legalising euthanasia along with the British
Medical Association, the Royal College of Physicians, the Association for Palliative Medicine, the British
Geriatric Society and the World Medical Association.

Tuesday, 18 February 2014

In 2012 there were 499,331
deaths registered in England and Wales, 54,937
in Scotland and 14,756
in Northern Ireland – a total of 569,024 human deaths.

In the same year there were 185,122
abortions carried out on women resident in England and Wales, 1,330
on women from other parts of the UK (including 905 from Northern Ireland) and 12,447
in Scotland – a total of 198,899 human deaths.

According to the answer given to a parliamentary question
asked by Lord Alton yesterday, there were 166,631 human embryos that were allowed to perish in the UK in 2012 – a
total of 166,631 human deaths. These are 'excess' embryos created in a laboratory by IVF technology that are thrown away.

In addition there
are about 250,000
miscarriages in the UK every year – a total of 250,000 human deaths.

So that’s a total of 1,184,554 human deaths in the UK in
2012 – 569,024 registered deaths, 250,000 miscarriages, 198,899 aborted babies,
and 166,631 embryos allowed to perish.

Of this total number of human deaths over half (52%) were
human beings who were never born, and of these 365,530 (31%) were human lives ended
by doctors before birth (abortions and embryos allowed to perish).

Each of this latter group were human beings that no one wanted and that a doctor, or other health professional, acted to destroy.

Abortion and embryo disposal are against the Hippocratic
Oath, against the Declaration of Geneva, against the International Code of
Medical Ethics and against the Judeo-Christian ethic on which the laws of our
country were originally based.

One consequence of preaching through the Bible book by book,
as our church does, is that you can’t escape considering the difficult
passages.

And so last Sunday we considered Joshua,
chapters 8-12. That’s the bit that deals with the slaughter of the
Canaanites.

In Joshua 8 Israel attacks the city of Ai and kills ‘12,000
men and women…’, ‘ all the people of Ai’.

In chapter 10 Joshua kills five Amorite kings – from Jerusalem,
Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, and Eglon – and hangs their bodies on five trees
before throwing them into a cave.

Then he proceeds to destroy the cities of Makkedah, Libnah,
Gezer, Lachish, Eglon, Hebron and Debir, on each occasion leaving ‘no
survivors’.

The accounts of similar military victories continue throughout
chapter 11 and 12, which end with a list of 31 Kings West of the Jordan who (along with the residents of their cities) Joshua put to the sword.

Two summaries of these battles within these chapters leave
us in no doubt that it was God himself who ordered this destruction:

‘So Joshua struck at
the whole land: the highlands, the arid southern plains, the lowlands, the
slopes, and all their kings. He left no survivors. He wiped out everything that
breathed as something reserved for God, exactly as the Lord, the God of
Israel, had commanded.’ (Joshua 10:40)

‘So Joshua took the
whole land, exactly as the Lord had promised Moses. Joshua gave it as
a legacy to Israel according to their tribal shares. Then the land had a rest
from war.’ (Joshua 11:23)

So the inescapable conclusion is that the Bible teaches both
that these cities were wiped out with no survivors left and that it was God who
authorised it.

Many people say that they could never believe in nor worship
a god who would authorise these sorts of ‘atrocities’. Richard Dawkins, in his
book ‘the God Delusion’ describes the god of the Old Testament as a ‘control
freak, ethnic cleanser and malevolent bully’.

But it is not just atheists who reject these passages. Steve
Chalke, in an article published in
Christianity magazine last week (longer version here),
cites these incidents as one of the reasons that he no longer believes that the
Bible is the Word of God.

So how do evangelicals, who believe that the Bible is
literally ‘God-breathed’, explain these scriptures?

We were reminded last week that the story of the Canaanite
conquests gives us one mistake to avoid and three characteristics of God to
understand.

We should first avoid thinking that the Canaanites were
innocent and neutral.

On 16 October 1946 a man called John Clarence Woods killed
ten men and got off scot free. Woods was a United States Army Master
Sergeant who, with Joseph Malta, carried out the executions of
ten former top leaders of the German Third Reich after they were
sentenced to death at the Nuremberg Trials. These men were directly
responsible for the horrors of the Nazi holocaust.

Was Woods a mass murderer? Some might say so, but many would
say he was just an instrument of justice doing what justice decreed had to be
done. At the time it was argued that these men deserved to die.

The Bible argues that the Canaanites also
deserved to die. Leviticus
18 and Deuteronomy
18:9-13 outline the ‘detestable ways’ of the Canaanites - sorcery,
witchcraft, idolatry, every kind of sexual immorality and child sacrifice on an
industrialised scale. In the eyes of God these were sins equivalent in severity
to those of the authors of the Nazi holocaust.

This tells us first that God is a god of justice. He does
not tolerate evil for ever but stamps it out. On this occasion it involved
wiping these nations off the face of the earth. The instrument he used was the
nation of Israel. This does not mean that Israel was good and these nations
bad. The Bible makes that abundantly clear in passages like Deuteronomy
7:1-11 and 9:1-6.

‘It is not because of
your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession
of their land; but on account of the wickedness of these nations,
the Lord your God will drive them out before you’ (Deuteronomy 9:5).

Israel was simply the means God used to execute his justice.
John Woods was not perfect either. But he was the means of justice when it came
to the Nazis. It is not a virtue to tolerate evil. Justice must be done and
someone acting under authority has to administer it.

Second it shows us God’s patience. The Canaanites
‘detestable ways’ were not some momentary departure from a life of virtue but
an established pattern that had persisted unchanged for centuries without any
indication of coming to an end. Thousands of innocent children had been
slaughtered and the real cause of this was these nations’ idolatry. God had
delayed his judgement for this period giving them every opportunity to change,
but they had opted not to. In fact his extreme patience had led him to leave his
own people Israel as slaves in Egypt for over 400 years out of mercy to the
Canaanites. As he said to Abraham hundreds of years earlier:

”Know for certain that
for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not
their own and that they will be enslaved and ill-treated there… In the fourth
generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites
has not yet reached its full measure”. (Genesis 15:13-16)

Third it displays God’s grace in that he gives us what we do
not deserve. Just as God delayed judgement on the Canaanites out of mercy, so
also he gave Israel the land of Canaan which they did not deserve. And with
Israel he preserved some of the Canaanites, like the prostitute Rahab from
Jericho, who ended up being absorbed into the Israelite nation and becoming a
human ancestor of Jesus Christ himself (Matthew 1:5). That’s grace!

So the slaughter of the Canaanites was not ethnic cleansing
motivated by racial discrimination. It was rather the careful, fair, settled
action of a God of justice, patience and grace.

But we also need to be clear that the slaughter of the
Canaanites was a one-off event never to be repeated. The usual pattern Israel
was to follow in war (Deuteronomy
20:1-20) was to make their enemies an offer of peace (20:10). War ensued
only if this was rejected. The slaughter of the Canaanites is not justification
for some kind of Jewish, let alone Christian, jihad.

If war is ever judged
necessary it must be waged justly. And Christians as individuals are called to
love their enemies, to pray for those who persecute them and to carry the
Gospel of peace. This passage is absolutely no precedent for genocide nor a justification for people claiming a divine right to similar actions today. Jesus told his disciples to put away their swords.

Finally, if we look at this story in the wider context of
salvation history (the big story of the Bible) it begins to make sense.

In reality none of us is innocent. All human beings are
sinners who fall short of God’s standards and deserve his judgement (Romans
3:23). Justice must be done, but God’s mercy (delaying judgement) and grace
(giving us what we do not deserve) lead him to look for a better way that both
deals with sin and also preserves us.

If you can see any justification at all in the slaughter of the Canaanites then you are starting to understand something of the seriousness of sin and the justice, mercy and grace of God - key starting points for considering what is the real heart of the Christian faith.

But that is to bring us back to the deeper question of why
Jesus Christ had to die on a Roman cross, a question that I deal with elsewhere
on this blog.

Sunday, 16 February 2014

‘Those same sex couples who choose to marry should be
welcomed into the life of the worshipping community and not be subjected to
questioning about their lifestyle.’ Neither should they 'be denied access to the sacraments'.

The document, however, also concludes (in bold) that the House
of Bishops is not ‘willing for those who are in a same sex marriage to be
ordained to any of the three orders of ministry’ (paragraph 27).

In addition it considers that ‘it would not be appropriate
conduct for someone in holy orders to enter into a same sex marriage, given the
need for clergy to model the Church's teaching in their lives’ (27).

However in the same breath it also says that ‘The Church of
England has a long tradition of tolerating conscientious dissent and of seeking
to avoid drawing lines too firmly’ (28).

So, in other words, laity who enter into same sex marriages (which must be outside the church as the church will not currently conduct marriage services for such couples) are to be ‘welcomed’ but clergy are to 'accept and minister the discipline of this Church and respect authority duly exercised within it' (28) by not conducting same sex marriages or entering into them themselves.

But it is not at all clear what will happen to those clergy who refuse to toe the line. Just how far will their 'conscientious dissent' be tolerated? Time will tell.

John Bingham, Social and Religious Affairs editor of
the Daily Telegraph, who reviewed the
document last week has called it a
‘masterclass in doublespeak, obfuscation and internal contradiction’.

The Christian blogger Cranmer has said that the document ‘is theologically bungling and spiritually vacuous’ and makes the obvious point that ‘it is not what Canon Law prohibits in theory but how the bishops handle disobedience in practice which will determine and define the Church's theology on same-sex marriage’.

It will surely only be a matter of time before some clergy begin
to test this inconsistency by ‘marrying’ in a registry office and then turning
up to minister at church or taking their challenge to the courts.

The future seems clear. Some members of the church will progressively push the
boundaries and argue, in the interests of equality and consistency, that first
clergy and ultimately Bishops should be granted the same degree of
‘conscentious dissent’ given to the laity. And it will be very difficult for
the Bishops, having already made the concessions they have, to hold the line.

St Paul took a different view. He warns in his first letter
to the Corinthians (6:9,10) that ‘participants in same-sex intercourse’ will
not ‘inherit God’s Kingdom’.

He places these people in the same category as those who are
‘sexually immoral, worship false gods, adulterers, thieves, greedy, drunks,
abusive people, and swindlers’.

He urges the church in Corinth to deal with these cases
itself and not to involve the courts and makes it very clear in the
previous chapter (1 Corinthians 5) that those who claim to be believers
(call themselves ‘brother’ or ‘sister’) and behave this way are to be expelled from the church.

If we think that this is implying that the church should
not welcome sinners we have misunderstood Paul completely. He actually exhorts
the church to ‘associate’ with those ‘in the outside world’ who
are ‘sinners’ (5:9-12) and not to judge them.

After all this is what Jesus himself did and many of the
Corinthian church members once participated in these practices themselves (6:11).

But this is not what the Church of England Bishops are
saying. They are saying that those who call themselves believers and
continue in these above activities should be ‘welcomed into the life of the
worshipping community’ and 'should not be denied access to the sacraments' (baptism and communion).

This distinction between the way unbelievers and people who claim to be believers are to be treated is the crucial distinction.

Furthermore it highlights precisely how the Church of England no longer follows the Apostles’
teaching.

Their findings have been reported by the Daily
Telegraph, with calls to clamp down on independent counselling clinics and
talk of scandalous misinformation being given out.

Crisis
pregnancy counselling must always be professional and evidence-based. The use
of bad science and research is wrong. Counselling clinics must provide women
with unbiased information so that they can make fully informed decisions about
their options.

With that
in mind, let’s take a look at what the EFC report claims, and who is behind it.

The Daily Telegraph news
report highlights cases of poor practice (a grand total of two!), and
ignores all counselling or centres where there is very good independent advice
and counselling offered ie. the overwhelming majority.

The EFC
Report states several times that counselling centres should be
transparent about their ethos, aims and motivation, which no one would take
issue with.

We should therefore ask the same of centres such as the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) and Marie Stopes International (MSI) and other abortion clinics who offer their own
counselling, while relying for their funding and thus operation from tax-payer
funded abortion provision! It would be appropriate to have rather more
transparency here too. It would also be interesting to see the sort of literature that is available on
alternative options from these clinics and to see what women are really told,
or not told (I return to this point later).

In fact, in
past blogs (here and here) I have revealed how abortion providers –
namely BPAS and MSI - are strongly driven by financial motivations and see
success in increasing the number of abortions that they perform. They have a
combined income of about £150 million per year, much of it from tax revenues
(which is considerably more income than independent counselling clinics who
offer a free service to women). They have business plan objectives and targets
to increase the number of abortions that they perform. They also provide
‘counselling’ so it would be interesting to see what the Telegraph found if it
ever ‘mystery shopped’ these clinics (perhaps the paper might consider this).

What is
therefore not explained in the all the media coverage today is that women who
are referred to BPAS or MSI for an NHS-funded abortion are denied access to any
other source of independent counselling. These organisations depend on their
income from providing and selling abortion and are not the appropriate place to
provide pre-abortion counselling to vulnerable women who need support.

My second concern is that the EFC report attacks (very few)
counselling centres for (some of) the medical claims they are making. So
the Report
itself counters these with a few claims of its own:

· Post
abortion syndrome is a bogus medical disorder;

· It is
misleading to claim abortion may lead to depression or trauma;

· There
is no link with abortion and breast cancer;

· There
are no proven associations between induced abortion and subsequent pre-term
birth;

· And
it criticises centres that suggest adoption is a loving or brave option to
take.

All these points are highly contentious and disputable.

First, the evidence on a link between abortion and mental health, breast cancer
and pre-term birth is widely documented.

There are well
established mental health problems after abortion. The largest, most
comprehensive and systematic review into
the mental health outcomes of induced abortion, by the Academy of Medical Royal
Colleges in 2011, found that abortion does not improve mental health outcomes
for women with unplanned pregnancies and does not offer any greater protection
from mental health problems. The Review also found that women who had mental
health problems before abortion were at greater risk of mental health problems
after abortion and that other factors are associated with increased rates of
post-abortion mental health problems, such as a woman having a negative
attitude towards abortions in general, being under pressure from her partner to
have an abortion, or experiencing stressful life events.

Whilst the ‘jury remains
out’ on the link between abortion and breast cancer the evidence
certainly cannot be claimed to be non-existent as this new large
meta-analysis shows. A total of 36 articles (two cohort studies and 34
case–control studies) covering 14 provinces in China were included in the
review published just this month which concluded that induced abortion is
significantly associated with an increased risk of breast cancer and that the
risk of breast cancer increases as the number of abortions increases. Women at
very least have a right to know that there is an ongoing debate.

There is a clear association between abortion
and pre-term birth (see here
too) which no serious authority now denies. In fact there are now 137
studies on the link including two well-designed meta-analyses from
2009. These show that after one abortion, risk for a future preterm birth
before 37 weeks increases by 36 percent and risk for a future very preterm
birth before 32 weeks increases by 64 percent. There are no meta-analyses that
refute this association. The abortion-preterm birth link is settled science.

So if a
woman is to be able to make an informed decision, she must be made aware of the
medical opinion and research showing that abortion carries a possible breast
cancer risk and an established preterm birth risk.

Third, a brief comment on the headline claim of the
Telegraph, that abortion will make women child
sex abusers. This was not actually stated or claimed by the woman being
secretly filmed.

Furthermore, this blog post here
by one woman, Caroline Farrow, who has
experienced the regret of an abortion and experienced a lack of any
pre-abortion counselling or medical information from the abortion clinic she
went to, comments directly on this headline claim, explaining exactly what was
said, and why. Sometimes newspaper headlines distort and misrepresent the truth.

Fourth,
helping women to consider the real alternatives of adoption and keeping the
baby is simply enabling them to explore all options. There is currently only one baby adoption for every 2,235
abortions in Britain,
a ratio seven times worse even than the US. With real choice and proper support
for women this ratio could be vastly improved to the benefit of mothers, babies
and childless couples.

Finally,
every organisation that provides abortion counselling has an agenda of some
sort or another, pro-life or pro-abortion. One cannot shut down organisations
which are aiming to counsel women with crisis pregnancies simply because one or
two are not providing what is deemed to be ‘acceptable’ medical interpretation,
especially when that ‘evidence’ is disputed.

Taking this
all from another perspective. Caroline Farrow puts it well when she
concludes that:

‘The
scandal is the attempt to deny that abortion can cause very real harm to women.
The scandal is the attempt to close down debate on the harmful effects of
abortion and deprive women of all the information they need.’

We need
independent counselling clinics to be able to help women come to fully informed
decisions about their next step and to know the risks, their options and their
choices. Clinics must all provide women with accurate, unbiased, evidence-based
information, away from the abortion clinic, with adequate unpressured time to
make their decisions, which is what the majority of independent centres already
freely offer.

It would be
a tragedy if this kind of selective reporting by pro-abortion organisations
were to prevent the good work that is being offered by the vast majority of
independent centres.

If you have not yet
discovered Piper’s biographies then I heartily recommend them. They can all be
downloaded free of charge from the Desiring
God website and are great for car or train journeys, walks and
runs.

The following, extracted and adapted from Piper, is I hope a useful taster.

Charles Simeon (1759
– 1836) was an English evangelical clergyman who lived through
the American Revolution, the French Revolution and not quite into the decade of
the telegraph and the railroad.

Jonathan Edwards, the major figure of the Great Awakening in
the US, died the year before Simeon was born but the Wesleys and Whitefield
were still alive, and so the Methodist awakening was in full swing.

In his 54 years at Trinity Church, Cambrdige, Simeon became
a powerful force for evangelicalism in the Church of England. His position at
the university, with his constant influence on students preparing for the
ministry, made him a great recruiter of young evangelicals for pulpits around
the land. But not only around the land. He became the trusted advisor of the
East India Company, and recommended most of the men who went out as chaplains,
which is the way Anglicans could be missionaries to the East in those days.

Simeon had a great heart for missions. He was the spiritual
father of the great Henry Martyn. He was the key spiritual influence in the
founding of the Church Missionary Society, and was zealous in his labours for
the British and Foreign Bible Society and the Society for Promoting
Christianity among the Jews. In fact, on his death bed he was dictating a
message to be given to the Society about his deep humiliation that the church
has not done more to gather in the Jewish people.

Probably most of all, Simeon exerted his influence through
sustained Biblical preaching year after year. This was the central labour of his
life. He lived to place into the hands of King William the Fourth in 1833 the
completed 21 volumes of his collected sermons.

In this sermon Piper
reports on a debate between Simeon and John Wesley on the subject of Calvinism.

Simeon did not want
to be labelled a Calvinist or an Arminian. He wanted to be biblical through and
through and give every text its due proportion, whether it sounded Arminian as
it stands or Calvinistic. But he was known justifiably as an evangelical
Calvinist and was uninhibited in his affirmation of what we would call ‘the
doctrines of grace’.

However he had
little sympathy for uncharitable Calvinists and did not let his passion for
truth divide from others, believing that ‘kindness and concession are far
better than vehement argumentation and uncharitable discussion’ (Horae
Homileticae, Vol. 15, p. 357).

An example of how he
lived out this counsel is seen in the way he conversed with the elderly John
Wesley. He tells the story himself:

Sir, I understand that you are called an
Arminian; and I have been sometimes called a Calvinist; and therefore I suppose
we are to draw daggers. But before I consent to begin the combat, with your
permission I will ask you a few questions. Pray, Sir, do you feel yourself a
depraved creature, so depraved that you would never have thought of turning to
God, if God had not first put it into your heart?

Yes, I do indeed.

And do you utterly despair of recommending
yourself to God by anything you can do; and look for salvation solely through
the blood and righteousness of Christ?

Yes, solely through Christ.

But, Sir, supposing you were at first saved
by Christ, are you not somehow or other to save yourself afterwards by your own
works?

No, I must be saved by Christ from first to
last.

Allowing, then, that you were first turned by
the grace of God, are you not in some way or other to keep yourself by your own
power?

No.

What then, are you to be upheld every hour
and every moment by God, as much as an infant in its mother's arms?

Yes, altogether.

And is all your hope in the grace and mercy
of God to preserve you unto His heavenly kingdom?

Yes, I have no hope but in Him.

Then, Sir, with your leave I will put up my
dagger again; for this is all my Calvinism; this is my election, my
justification by faith, my final perseverance: it is in substance all that I
hold, and as I hold it; and therefore, if you please, instead of searching out
terms and phrases to be a ground of contention between us, we will cordially
unite in those things wherein we agree. (Moule, 79f)

Both Christianity and Islam have been tremendously
influential in world history. About one quarter of the world’s population at
least nominally, would regard themselves as Christians. One in five would call
themselves Muslims.

Yet for most of the last thirteen centuries the two
religions have developed in parallel in separate parts of the world. Islam has
mainly been centred in the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, Turkey,
India and South East Asia (especially Indonesia and Malaysia). By contrast
Christianity has been confined largely to Europe, North and South America,
Africa and the former Soviet Union. And yet both have been, and still are,
growing rapidly.

Now, perhaps for the first time in world history, Christians
and Muslims can meet and exchange views in a way that they’ve never been able
to before. This is especially possible in schools, university forums and on the
internet where Muslim Christian dialogue is taking place on an unprecedented
scale.

In many ways Muslims and Christians find themselves as
co-belligerents in a common battle against the modern world. The West is now
not Christian but rather post-Christian and post-modern. It’s characterised by
an obsession with media technology (consumerism and entertainment), a radical
relativism which asserts that we can all have our own private truth, an
ego-centrism (which looks after number one) and a religious pluralism which
asserts all religions are the same. This way of thinking has led to escapism
and cynicism in society generally.

By contrast both Christianity and Islam find themselves
running against this ideology. They share a concern for community, service and
absolute truth: involvement rather than escapism, hope as opposed to cynicism.
While postmodern society holds that man is simply a clever monkey, the product
of matter, chance and time in a Godless universe, Muslims and Christians are
together in asserting that man was made to enjoy a relationship with God.

There are obviously
strong differences between the truth claimsof Islam and
Christianity – especially with regard to the person, words and work of Jesus
Christ – but it’s also useful to map out our common ground. Here there are
seven common strands clearly evident.

First, Islam and Christianity share a common ethical code,
one which underlies respect for marriage, a belief in the sanctity of life, and
a respect for property. The Ten Commandments of the Old Testament are very
similar to Islamic ethics and as Christian doctors we find ourselves agreeing
with Muslims on many ethical issues. For example members of the Christian
Medical Fellowship work together with members of the Islamic Medical
Association within Care Not Killing, which campaigns against the legalisation
of euthanasia.

Second, Christianity and Islam share a common geography and
history. The two religions date back to the Middle East and in particular come
together in the person of Abraham and his two sons, Ishmael and Isaac.

Third, we share a belief in one God. This may seem a
surprise to Muslim readers, but both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible
assert God’s oneness. ‘The Lord is one’ says Deuteronomy 6:4. ‘There is One
God…’ says 1 Timothy 2:5.

Fourth, we share a belief in prophets – men throughout
history chosen as God’s mouthpiece who spoke God’s Word. Many of these prophets
are shared in both religious traditions. For example: Moses who brought us the
Torah (Taurat), David who brought us the Psalms (Zabur), and of course Jesus
who preached the Gospel (Injil). There are several other biblical prophets who
are also mentioned in the Qur’an.

Fifth, we share a belief in angels: heavenly beings who are
used as God’s messengers throughout history. Gabriel in particular plays a
prominent place in both religions. Muslims believe that Muhammad was visited by
Gabriel and of course Christians believe that Gabriel appeared to Mary to
announce the birth of Jesus Christ.

Sixth, we share a belief in Scriptural authority. We accept
that God’s revelations throughout history have been recorded in books, and
while we may disagree about the degree of divine inspiration of the various
books in our religious traditions, we nonetheless both share a profound respect
of the authority of ‘Scripture’.

Seventh and finally, we share a belief in the day of
judgment. Both, Christians and Muslims, hold that on this day God will divide
everyone who has lived on our planet into two groups; one group consigned to
heaven (paradise) and the other group consigned to hell. While we differ on the
criteria by which that judgment will be made, we nevertheless concur on the
fact that there are only two possible destinations for human beings after
death.

As a basis for dialogue aimed at establishing the truth, it
is worthwhile first to acknowledge these convictions that are held in common by
Christians and Muslims and are not shared by atheists - matters on which Islam and Christianity are right and atheism is wrong.

Sunday, 9 February 2014

There is no doubt that Mary, the mother of Jesus, plays an
important role in salvation history. Like John the Baptist, her coming is
prophesied in the Old Testament (Isaiah 7:14; Micah 5:23). She is personally
visited by the angel Gabriel at the time of Christ’s conception and is told
that she is highly favoured by God (Luke 1:28).

She prophesies about Christ while he is still in the womb
(Luke 1:46-55), and is given the responsibility by God of being the earthly
mother of the Lord. It is no wonder that Elizabeth, is inspired by God's
Spirit, to say of Mary ‘Blessed are you among women’! (Luke 1:42)

These are all biblical truths to be treasured and affirmed.
However, some Catholic traditions have added to these facts, other statements which
the Bible does not affirm. These add to Scripture, contradict other biblical
teachings and both elevate Mary and subjugate Christ. Specifically:

1. Mary was born without sin

‘the mother of God entirely holy and free from all stain of sin' (Lumen Gentium 56); ' the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all guilt of original sin' (LG 59)

The Bible nowhere states this. This contradicts the plain
teaching of Scripture that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Proverbs
20:9; Ecclesiastes 7:20; Isaiah 64:6; Romans 3:10-12, 23). It means also that
Christ was not the ‘second Adam’ (Romans 5:12-19), but rather Mary was. It also
implies that Christ’s death and resurrection were not necessary for Mary’s
salvation (Romans 5:8).The doctrine is a mistaken deduction from
the truth that Jesus was born without sin. In fact, Jesus’ sinlessness was not
jeopardised by being the son of a sinner.

The Bible does not say this. It rather implies that Joseph
had sexual relations with Mary after Jesus’ birth (Matthew 1:25). This is
consistent with the fact that Jesus had siblings (Mark 6:3, 12:46,47),and
that there is no suggestion of Joseph being polygamous.

3. Mary is the mother of the church

‘We believe that the Holy Mother of God, the new Eve, Mother of the Church, continues in heaven to exercise her maternal role on behalf of the members of Christ' (New Universal Catechism 975)

Mary is nowhere given this title in Scripture, and it places
Mary on a par with God himself, the only one Christians may address as ‘father’
(Matthew 23:9). This is an unwarranted deduction from Jesus’ instructions to
John at the time of the crucifixion (John 19:26,27). He makes it clear
elsewhere that the term mother (as opposed to Mother of the Church) can
justifiably be applied to other women disciples who do his will (Matthew
12:48-50).

4. We should pray to Mary

‘ the Blessed Virgin is invoked in the Church under the titles of Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix’ (New Universal Catechism 969); '

the Blessed Virgin has been honored with the title of ‘Mother of God,’ to whose protection the faithful fly in all their dangers and needs' (NUC 971)

Scripture tells us only to pray to God the Father (Matthew
6:9). Communication with the dead is elsewhere forbidden (Deuteronomy 18:11; Isaiah
8:19). Christ is the only mediator between God and man. The Hail Mary in which Mary is enjoined to ‘pray
for us sinners’ presupposes that we ourselves cannot have the confidence to
enter ‘the Most Holy Place’ by the blood of Jesus alone. This is simply not
true (Hebrews 10:19-22).

5. The assumption of Mary

‘the Immaculate Virgin... on the completion of her earthly sojourn, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory and exalted by the Lord as Queen of the universe’ (LG
59)

Again, there is no biblical record of this event occurring.
The ‘assumptions’ of Enoch, Elijah and Moses are mentioned (Deuteronomy 34:6;
Jude 9; 2Kings 2:11; Genesis 5:24) but not that of Mary.

These and other more fanciful claims such as the pre-existence
and immaculate conception of Mary herself (ie Mary was also conceived by the
power of the Holy Spirit), can mean that in practical terms she ends up occupying a
place equal if not higher than that of Christ himself. In some Catholic
traditions she even becomes the Wisdom of the early chapters of Proverbs and
the Woman of Revelation 12.

Christ makes it clear that it is those who do the will of
God who are truly blessed (Luke 11:27-28) and while Mary is without doubt included
in this number, she is by no means unique in this regard. I am sure she would agree with me.

An English petition
against the move has already gained over 56,000 signatures and other language
versions of the petition are accessible on the home
page of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition Europe website (Please add your
signature).

1. Even the most complex medical cases can be solved in
the current legal framework, with the means and expertise at our disposal. For
whom is this legislation therefore designed?

2. Children in Belgium are not suffering. The
palliative care teams for children are perfectly capable of achieving pain
relief, both in hospital and at home.

3. A sensitive child may perceive the option of
euthanasia as a solution or a duty, especially if the child feels that the
parents can no longer bear to see him suffer.

4. In practice, there is no objective method for determining
whether a child is gifted with the ability of discernment and judgment.So
this is actually largely subjective and subject to other influences.

The paediatricians concluded:

We believe that there is no urgency to pass this bill in
the current legislature.

In a key demonstration of cross-continent opposition,
parliamentarians from across Europe have now laid down a motion at the Council of Europe
– best known for its focus on human rights – also denouncing this latest of alarming
developments in the country’s law.

Care Not Killing, for which I act as Campaign Director, has covered this issue in context a number of times (see here,
here,
here
and here)
and fully endorses the parliamentarians’
view that the move ‘betrays some of the
most vulnerable children in Belgium by accepting that their lives may no longer
have any inherent value or worth and that they should die... [and] promotes the
unacceptable belief that a life can be unworthy of life which challenges the
very basis of civilised society.’

It is widely acknowledged that euthanasia is out of control
in Belgium: a 500% increase in cases in ten years; one third involuntary; half
not reported; euthanasia for blindness, anorexia and botched sex change
operations; organ transplant euthanasia; plans to extend euthanasia to children
and people with dementia.

One commentator has said that
Belgium has 'leaped head-first off a moral cliff'.

Belgium's law, which came into effect in 2002, permits
euthanasia for those in a ‘medically hopeless’ situation due to a serious and
incurable condition caused by injury or illness, with physical and/or
psychological suffering which is constant and unbearable, and cannot be
mitigated.

But it is clear that in practice the boundaries are continually migrating and
the nation's moral conscience is shifting year on year. Call it incremental
extension, mission creep or slippery slope - whatever - it is strongly in evidence
in Belgium.

With the Falconer and MacDonald bills currently before the
House of Lords and Scottish Parliament respectively Britain needs to take sober
warning from events across the English Channel.

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Kiwi, Christian and Medical

This blog deals mainly with matters at the interface of Christianity and Medicine. But I do also diverge into other subjects - especially New Zealand, rugby, economics, developing world, politics and topics of general Christian and/or medical interest. The opinions expressed here are mine and may not necessarily reflect the views of my employer or anyone else associated with me.

About Me

I am CEO of Christian Medical Fellowship, a UK-based organisation with 4,500 UK doctors and 1,000 medical students as members. The opinions expressed here however are mine, and may not necessarily reflect the views of CMF or anyone else associated with me.